Which agency would you choose?
OK, here is a fucking excellent game that will help you while away the hours AND allow you to leave brilliantly thought-out and interesting comments on this blog:
You are the owner of a big-ish company, something like Innocent, and you have an advertising budget of around £5m (fuck knows if that’s anywhere near Innocent’s real budget).
So, under those circumstances, what kind of ad campaign would you create (lots of social media, or are you aware that it’s mainly bollocks that won’t shift a single drop of smoothie? Big 90″ cinema ad? Sponsor the premiership to get all their balls printed with apple designs and Innocent logos?) and, more importantly, which agency would you appoint to the task?
Would you stipulate any conditions, such as asking for a specific team or planner to work on your biz? Would you expect to be lunched and fellated? Perhaps you’d just let the poor bastards get on with it without sticking your fucking oar in. That’d make a nice change, don’t you think?
Anyway, answers on a postcard and all that.
(For what it’s worth, I’d choose Wiedens to do press, posters and TV and I’d insist that Tony and Kim did the ads. No offence to any non-T&K W&K creatives. Maybe I’d also see if Alex and Oli could get me in The Sun with one of their cool ideas.)
I’d do it all in-house.
What about digi-tool?
Oh yeah.
Right, I’ve changed my mind. All the same, but all the money’s going into financing a 2 minute internet ad that’s going to be so fuck-off amazing that it virals like a motherfucker.
I’d put the pack in a cape and have it running around saving people from their peckishness over and over and over and over and over again. Then I’d spend what was left over on an open top Aston Martin and a baseball cap.
How many routes would you expect?
Interesting that you’ve chosen Innocent as the brand in question. I think there’s more than a few teams out there who have had their chains pulled by this particular client during a relentless and circuitous process of pitching, winning, losing, re-pitching, going in-house (maybe what Johnny was alluding to) and pitching again. Don’t be surprised if a few people who wasted some weekends chasing a wild goose tell you exactly what they’d do with the cash. And I don’t think they’d spend it on advertising….
I wouldn’t expect to be fellated for ¬£5m. Now, ¬£10m is s different story…
I’d bypass my Marketing Dept and all those people who spend a year coming up with a “strategy” when someone with a bit of common sense (ahhh I see the problem) could do it in two fucking minutes*.
I’d take the creatives out for dinner without any account man present and brief them myself. I’d tell the agency that if they show me a 223 slide pfpt presentation (power fucking point) before they show me the ads I’d put my cock in their earholes. Then I’d look at the ads and by using common sense, approve the best ones. Cheaper, easier, stress-free and as much chance (but more likely better) of being “right” as ads produced by the legions of thickos who have a vested interest in making the whole process difficult and painful.
*Fucking minutes are 20 times longer than normal minutes. Fact.
I’d crowdsource the lot.
I’d get 4 Creative to make a cinema, TV and print ad, and I’d blow the rest on a brilliant iphone App from AKQA.
I wouldn’t use social media. I saw this and it scared me.
http://tinyurl.com/6b67239
@Blah, none.
I mean one.
http://www.theviralfactory.com/
Approach a production company and get a director with a creative background to put a couple of ideas together, then shoot it/them.
I’d give it to W&K or Mother. The first because they seem to give a shit and make good work for smaller sized accounts, the second because I’d be able to relax in the knowledge that some underpaid, over-enthusiastic beardy guys had been forced to give over their weekends and entire lives to get a joint non-credit on my ads. The ads would then make my brand quite famous for a while and get me a Whorebitch House membership. First of all though, I’d have a pitch with about 5 top agencies, savagely raping them of their free ideas. I’d keep BBH in the mix right till the very end before giving it to W&K. Simply because they’d hold a hilariously overwrought internal post-mortem before picking a suitable (creative department) scapegoat. Being a client is fucking ace.
I’d sell the company and retire at 24.
I’ve got it.
I’d split the budget five-ways and offer a million each to whoever consumed the most Innocent smoothies.
Then I would send out one Tweet announcing the competition.
After that, I’d sit back and watch the pencils role in.
I’d hire Grey and get them to pay for me to have a gak-induced heart attack in about three weeks time, probably caused by the over-enthusiastic rattling of a Lithuanian Spearmint Rhino employee (that they’ve also paid for). And I’m talking about a stripper, not the burly doorman.
Fancy doing a post on admen turned writers Ben? (ignoring ‘How to be’ guides)
I only mention it because the Screenwriter of Chalet Girl was a Saatchis grad trainee – gasp, I know.
What angle would you like me to explore?
Erm, creative vs suits?
Or what form suits ad people best? TV, Film, novels, poetry, pre-nups?
Or you could ignore me and I’ll stop treating this blog as my personal play thing.
God, I’m bored today.
Thanks NC, just added Grey to my pitch list.
i’m assuming awareness isn’t a problem here.
is five million enough for national tv? if so then i’d do that.
i would do one execution (save money) and air the shit out of it. and it would be the most tempting tv ad you’ve ever seen. no hippy bullshit. no attempts at comedy. just wall to wall fruit and/or frame juice.
I’ll get victor&spoils to crowdsource for me. Wait a min… I can do that myself!
Seriously I’ll probably set it as a student brief or get Involvecwith d&ad student awards and pay the winning entry their dues.
This will cut the planner/acct mgmt/research/post rationalising crap.
frame juice? fruit juice.
I would simply pay Cheryl Cole ¬£5million quid to do what we ask and then put out FB messages and tweets that for every, let’s say, 5 million quid’s worth of smoothies people buy, we’ll release a youtube video of her removing another item of clothing.
I’d give the brief to the very talented people on the Watford Ad course.
And make sure they get full credit.
And buy Tony a beer.
Vinny,
I like the thought of frame juice. Can you expand?
If I was Innocent, I would brief a young start up agency and get them to give me a pitch book of all their great ideas before going to a more well known agency, who would be happy to work for fuck all money. I’d then give that big agency the book of really good ads from the extremely keen start up and get them to do those ads for free. If I was Innocent.
We’re generally sceptical of clients who say, ‘We just want you to do TV and press.’ But, since it’s you, we’d consider accepting your business based on our usual criteria:
– will we enjoy it and learn stuff from working on it?
– can we do awesome work on it?
– do we like and admire you and your people?
– can we make a reasonable profit?
Lunch is possible if by ‘lunch’ you mean shit, soggy sandwiches from Pret but fellatio is out of the question.
1. Yes. Possibly.
2. Do what you like. I’ll trust you.
3. Of course you do. You should see my people. They’re so likeable and admirable that you’ll schedule utterly pointless meetings just to spend more time with us.
4. If you think one million pounds -YES! ONE MILLION POUNDS – is reasonable.
And if I’m at Wiedens I’d just like a turkey sandwich from Verdana, a choc orange bar from Montezuma and a Coke Zero from that fridge you’ve got in reception. But one of my people will get that shit together.